


The Longest Night

by theramblinrose



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Caryl, F/M, Just the two of them, Post Terminus, on the road, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25916593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theramblinrose/pseuds/theramblinrose
Summary: Caryl, Oneshot.  Post-Terminus/AUish.  It was only supposed to be a simple grab for supplies, but it turned into the longest night that Daryl could recall.  Rating for language, just in case.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Carol Peletier
Kudos: 29





	The Longest Night

AN: This is just a little one shot. It was a combination of requests on Tumblr.

I own nothing from the Walking Dead.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think! 

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Sometimes it seemed like the best thing—the only thing—to do was cover ground and cover it quickly.

It was nothing more than a routine grab for supplies. They’d done everything right. Daryl had found the spot while out hunting—wandering farther than he usually went to trail a deer. He’d checked it out quickly and quietly, and he’d brought back only what he could carry as proof, to himself, perhaps, that the barely picked over warehouse in the remnants of a small town wasn’t some kind of imagined oasis. They’d watched the place for a while, from a distance. They’d returned for several days to make sure that it looked clear. They’d checked the surrounding area. They couldn’t find proof of anyone living close by. There were no signs of a group.

Daryl and Carol had been on their own for some time—they’d lost track of the days, really. Rick had said that he wouldn’t welcome Carol back to the prison, that he didn’t want her around his children, and that he didn’t trust her. Now the prison was gone, and he’d had to somewhat change his tune when she’d saved them all from being killed and eaten at Terminus. He’d especially had to reconsider things when she’d brought his daughter back to him safe and sound—something he’d failed to do for her—but the damage was already done.

No matter what he said, or what any of them said, all Carol could hear was that Rick didn’t want her around. He didn’t want her near his children. He didn’t trust her because she simply couldn’t be trusted.

She was unwanted.

She’d tried to leave quietly, and she’d tried to leave alone, but Daryl hadn’t let her go. He couldn’t let her go. She’d slipped out under the cover of darkness that night, and Daryl had followed behind her. He’d kept a distance for a while, so that she wouldn’t notice him and try to send him back, but he’d finally revealed himself when he’d decided that she had to stop to rest. 

He hadn’t planned what he meant to say. He hadn’t planned how he intended to tell her that he loved her—that he’d loved her for longer than it felt right to admit—but in the heat of the moment, it had all come pouring out. 

He didn’t want to be without her. He was never happy when she was gone, even for a day, and he didn’t want to begin to imagine feeling that feeling forever. She could send him away if she wanted, but he wouldn’t go. He would respect her wishes, and he would keep his distance, if that’s what made her happy, but he would never leave—not entirely.

He had never expected her to say that she loved him, too, even though she feared that she wasn’t very good at loving and wouldn’t be very good for him.

Despite her concerns, she’d been the best thing that ever happened to him.

Still, being two people, on their own, was no easy task in this world. Their reliance on each other truly gave new meaning to the term “having each other’s backs.” No matter how careful they were, they still got caught, sometimes, in some pretty tricky situations.

They’d both been surprised when the proverbial net had fallen.

They were smarter than to let their guards down—both of them were—but they’d trusted what they’d observed over the past few days. They’d trusted that the place was empty and the area was empty. In the heat of the moment, trying to figure out how to fit as much as possible into the bags that they could carry, they’d let themselves get completely consumed by the task at hand. 

For all his skills as a tracker and hunter—and his newly honed skills as a full-time survivalist—he didn’t even know that they were there until he’d heard the gun cock.

His blood had run cold in his body and he’d nearly lost control of his bladder when he saw the glint of the knife at Carol’s throat and heard the throaty growl of happiness from the man who looked raggier than Grizzly Addams had ever dreamed of being.

“Look at his little friend up close, boys. Looks like we got a woman.” 

In an instant, Daryl knew that he would kill the man if he got a chance to do so without injuring Carol. It seemed that she had the same idea, though. Carol had actually been the one to start the fight, so to speak, or at least to ring the bell. She’d been on her knees, packing the bag, when Grizzly Addams’ chewing-tobacco-stained cousin had come up behind her. She swept her foot back, almost gracefully, and tripped the man.

He went down, his friends closed in, and the fight began.

The fight had truly been like a whirlwind. There had been gunshots—the sounds of which were deafening as they reverberated inside the concrete walls of the small warehouse. The screams, grunts, howls, and other sounds echoed just as badly. This was a fight where there was no room for discussion, compassion, or mercy. Daryl didn’t know what was at the other end of the trap—something like the boxcars at Terminus or, maybe, something even worse—but neither he nor Carol wanted to find out. Dying was better, honestly, than being taken. 

But killing was better than dying.

It would have been ridiculous to think of winning the fight if they’d been triply outnumbered. The fact of the matter was, though, that they were vastly more outnumbered than that. They both killed who they could, but the silent understanding that passed between them was that escape was their greatest hope for survival.

Somehow, they did escape. They got out the back door like cats slipping through the fingers of someone trying to grab them. They both ran, panting and desperate, without looking back.

There was no need for communication. They had to keep going. They had to put distance between themselves and the group they’d left behind before they could stop to rest and regroup. There was no need to head back to what they’d called home, temporarily, before. It was lost to them now. They would have been stupid to believe that the group didn’t know where they’d been hiding out. Without a doubt, they’d been stalking Daryl the whole time that he’d stalked them. They might not have known the particulars of his companion—and, maybe, from a distance they even confused Carol with a slight-framed man—but they would know where it was that Daryl came from and where he went each day.

Daryl welcomed the sight of the wooded patches that dotted the Georgia landscape, and he dived into one, moving quickly and clearing a path with is body for Carol as she ran behind him. They broke through the young trees and underbrush like deer frantically running from hunters.

“You OK?” Daryl called out a couple of times, and listened for the response over the rush of his blood in his ears and the roaring sound of his own exhausted breathing.

They ran until Daryl couldn’t feel his legs anymore and he was certain that nobody—nobody—could have followed them that far. They simply weren’t that important. They couldn’t be. When he finally came to a stop, Carol caught up with him in a second. At first glance, she seemed to be doing better than him at getting her breath, even though she doubled over for a moment.

“You OK?” Daryl panted out. He reached his hand out to her and used his thumb to wipe away the sweat and blood at her neck. The asshole’s knife had nicked her skin, but it was already clotting. In hindsight, Daryl had probably done her more damage with his dirty thumb than he would have just letting her be.

She looked pained, but he was sure that he didn’t look too great himself.

“Fine,” she panted. “Are you OK?” 

“Pissed off,” Daryl said. 

“That’ll heal,” Carol offered.

“I’m sorry—I thought it was safe.” 

“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to find water. We need a camp before it gets dark.”

They had his crossbow and knife—which he happened to be wearing—her knife, and the straight bow that she’d only begun to master as a practical replacement for guns which required bullets. The only supplies they had was whatever was packed into her small cross-body bag which she wore, at almost all times, in case of an absolute emergency. The men had gotten everything else.

They were starting over, again, but this was nothing new to them.

“Come on,” Daryl said. “Gotta be a creek somewhere close.”

He dropped a hand around Carol’s shoulder. She moved slowly beside him, and he questioned her again about how she felt. She admitted that she’d caught a few blows in the fight, but she was fine. When he’d tried to convince her to let him take a look at her, she’d waved him off. There would be time for that when they had what they required most—water, food, a fire, and shelter. 

Daryl knew Carol was right. He knew that night wouldn’t wait forever. They had to work while the daylight was in their favor. They could look for a more permanent camp—something to start building to their liking, again, in the days to come, but they needed something to keep the Walkers off their backs while they rested.

It wasn’t too hard to find a barn that was pretty secure and was only a short distance from one of the many creeks in the area that was fed by a natural spring. The house that had once stood on the property had at least partially burned and fallen in. They could search the rubble for some remaining things that might be useful, but that would be a task for another day.

Daryl searched the barn for tools they could use to carry water, while Carol opened all the windows and swept the center of the dirt floor as clean as she could for a small fire. He gathered wood to keep feeding the small fire, and she boiled water for drinking and washing—filling old rubber feed barrels with the boiled water.

The rabbit and the four squirrels that Daryl snagged wouldn’t make for the best meal ever, but they would at least get them fed.

He was carrying back his game, tied together for easier transport with a piece of rope he found in the barn, when he saw Carol walking back toward the barn with another bucketful of water from the creek. She could say what she wanted, but she was struggling under the weight of the bucket, and Daryl’s gut told him it was more than the result of being a little sore or a little tired.

He rushed his steps and met her. He grabbed for the bucket, practically pulling it out of her hands. When she looked at him, his stomach dropped down around his feet.

Her eyes almost looked empty—absent. She looked at him almost as though she didn’t know him. 

“Carol—what’s wrong?” Daryl asked, the fear in his own voice actually frightening him a little.

She never said anything. At the moment she started to go down, he noticed the change in expression—the immediate lack of color in her face, the fluttering eyelids—and he saw her downward movement. Somehow, he managed to drop the bucket and the animals. He managed to get his arms around her and catch her as she went down. He stopped her from hitting the ground hard, though he couldn’t stop himself from slamming down on his knees.

He cradled her, a moment, confused, and sick, and afraid. He searched her over and called her name. She didn’t bother to open her eyes and comfort him. The nick at her throat was almost healed over. The scab had stopped the bleeding. She was dirty—filthy—as was Daryl. A bath would do her good. There was sweat and dirt all over her. Her clothes were crusted with the blood of the men that they’d fought and the injuries they’d had to dole out to them in order to escape.

When Daryl’s fingertips found the dampness, he understood. 

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, carefully lifting Carol’s body. He carried her into the barn, his concern for anything else lost entirely. He pulled up her shirt and quickly found the gash. It wasn’t serious—or at least it wouldn’t have been. The greatest concern, honestly, was the amount of blood that had been slowly seeping out of it as the day had progressed.

Carol hadn’t mentioned it. 

Of course she hadn’t. She wouldn’t have wanted to slow down their efforts to get settled. She wouldn’t have wanted to run the risk of them getting stuck somewhere without something they needed. She would feel responsible, then.

She’d rather die, unnecessarily, than be an inconvenience and, in that moment, Daryl hated everyone who had ever taught her that behavior.

Daryl double timed his actions. He moved the animals he’d killed inside and closed the barn doors, first, to keep them both protected while he worked. He searched Carol’s little emergency bag and found the small matchbox of sewing needles and the thread that she could be counted on to keep at all times. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. He washed his hands and ran his lighter over the needle a few times to disinfect it as well as he could. He ripped his shirt apart and used some of the rags for washing the wound, while he put the others aside to bind it.

He was left with little choice except for to simply pray that infection didn’t set in to make matters worse. 

Stitching the wound wasn’t difficult. Carol was out cold, and she didn’t so much as flinch while Daryl worked. Daryl bound the wound and stacked saddle blankets he found in the barn over old hay to make a pallet that they could share for the night. He moved Carol to the pallet and turned his attention to using a pitchfork to create a cooking utensil. It was less than perfect, but it would cook the food well enough to feed both of them. The food would help Carol get her strength up, once she could eat it and, honestly, the worrying over fine details would help Daryl to keep from losing his mind as he waited—since there was nothing more that he could really do.

It was bound to be the longest night that Daryl could recall in quite some time. 

It was difficult to tell how many hours passed or what time it was. There was darkness outside the barn windows, but that was all that Daryl could really tell. He washed with water from the buckets. He drank enough water and ate enough food to quiet his stomach’s demands for common needs. He fed the fire enough to keep it alive—barely more than a few embers that kept light and warmth in the barn. It wasn’t really cold. It would be a while before the cold set in too much, but there was still a certain cold that was settling into Daryl.

Carol lie on the pallet that he’d made her, close by, and slept—that’s what Daryl decided she was doing. He checked her a few times. Her breathing was steady and normal, and he believed her pulse was stronger than it had been. That’s what he told himself, at least. The wound had stopped seeping blood. 

Still, the cold that had settled into him—deeper, even, than his bones—remained.

Finally, digging a small trench around the fire in the dirt floor of the barn, and leaving the fire as nothing more than some smoldering embers, Daryl moved to the pallet. He was afraid of hurting her, but he couldn’t stand the idea of not touching her—especially since he feared, more than anything else, that some cruel hand of fate might take away his right to touch her soon enough.

She would scold him, he knew, if she woke up and found him sleeping after her injury. She would be angry that he slept when she might have turned and killed him. He didn’t care. He didn’t care if she turned and killed him—he would rather it be that way. And he didn’t care if she scolded him because, in waking to scold him, she would alleviate all of his greatest fears.

He gently wrapped an arm around her, nuzzled his face against her neck, and closed his eyes.

Daryl didn’t know what woke him—whether it was some sound, movement, or even just sunlight spilling across the barn floor from the old windows—but when he woke, he felt like he was staring directly into a dream.

He smiled to himself at the blue eyes that met his gaze.

“My favorite sight to see,” he said. 

“What happened?” Carol asked.

Daryl raised his eyebrows at her.

“You gonna tell me you didn’t know about that damned cut that was just free bleedin’ all day long?” Her silence and expression said that she knew about it, but she hadn’t expected to get caught. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” 

“There’s only so much time to make a camp…” Carol offered. It was exactly what Daryl expected, and that made him more than a little angry—though he recognized that his anger was really only the mixture of his frustration and fear.

“You’re a million fuckin’ times more important to me than camp,” Daryl said. 

“Not if the Walkers had gotten us both,” Carol said. “I couldn’t stand to know—I lost you.” 

For the first time since he’d rested her on the pallet and brushed his lips against hers with the silent prayer that everything would be fine, Daryl touched her face and brought their lips together again. In his mind, he gave thanks to whatever entity had seen fit to answer his prayer the night before, and he pushed a little further to ask that infection be kept away.

Carol returned the kiss, as she always did, and the promise of future kisses sent a shiver down Daryl’s spine and replaced the cold he’d felt the night before with a warmth that was worth anything. 

Nothing—nothing at all—mattered as long as they had this. They could start again a thousand times. They could rebuild every day. This was all that mattered.

“I’d rather die with you, than live without you,” Daryl said as soon as the kiss broke.

Carol smiled at him. It was a devilish smile that went all the way to her eyes, and Daryl was happy to see it.

“That’s pretty romantic,” she offered. “Screw around?” 

Daryl sat up from his spot on the pallet. He twisted, slightly, to loosen the muscles in his back. 

“Give that cut a couple days for them stitches to take good, and you won’t be able to keep me off you,” Daryl said. “Stay put—I’ma bring you food and water. Gotta build up that blood you lost.” 

“You take good care of me,” Carol said softly.

Daryl hummed at her and laughed to himself.

“Yeah—just don’t ever do that to me again, woman. I mean it. You die on me, and I promise I’m comin’ after you to give you a piece of my mind.”


End file.
